From The WWZ Files: Untold Stories
by SkippingZombie
Summary: Chap. 1: This Little Lamb in which a Female Sheep named Barry helps save a man's life.


FROM THE WWZ FILES

**FROM THE WWZ FILES**

**Part 1**

**TRUE STORY**

**TITLED: THIS LITTLE LAMB**

**CONCIEVED AND WRITTEN BY SKIPPINGZOMBIE**

**BASED ON THE AWARD-WINNING NOVEL BY MAX BROOKS**

**NO OWNERSHIP CLAIMS FOR THE ORIGINAL WORK ARE MADE**

**LOCATION: NORTHERN IL, USA**

**Ken J. Peters, author of **_**16 Steps to Restoring Your Environment: What you can do to help restore our country's beauty**_** and **_**Miracles of the War**_**, still resides in the little log cabin that he inhabited during the eight years he was stranded during the apocalyptic decade. We met in his two-room cabin, and by the time our interview was finished, I was claustrophobic.**

Barry isn't such a great name for a lamb, especially if that lamb is female. Let me one thing absolutely clear though. Despite the clearly mislabeled name issue, that lamb saved my life. It still bugs me though. No matter how I tried, I could not get her to respond to any other name. I tried 'Snow' and 'Fleece', and my favorite, 'Gakles', but the damn thing would only answer to Barry. It wasn't my fault because it wasn't me that named her. Her collar already had the name stitched into it when I found her during my sixth year in isolation. By then I was nearly gone, both mentally and physically.

I stayed alive only because I was good at raiding the nearby farmhouses. I usually was able to salvage enough food for a month at a time, and then I would have to risk leaving the safety of my cabin. I had well water for the first two years, and then I had to start using rainwater. The well water didn't run out, it became contaminated and was no longer sanitary. Canned goods worked well too because many had water inside along with the food.

The only thing I couldn't stomach was canned beets. Other than that, I had really low food standards. Fresh foods were nonexistent by the end of my isolation. Tree bark would have been a bit of a luxury. Instead, I lived on canned corn and stew.

As for why I decided to stay at my cabin… my pet terrier had been buried beneath the floor, and I felt I couldn't leave him. It sounds silly now, but he was the only family I had had.

My first year was terrible. I offed forty zombies in those twelve months alone. That is quite a few if you consider how far from town I live. Nobody except farmers for thirty miles in any direction. I didn't see a live human that first year.

My second year was quieter. Sixteen zombies, mostly during June This scar—

**He points to a long gash, long since healed over, darkly outlined in the skin of his calf**

--wasn't from anything impressive. I fell through a rotten floorboard during a search for food in October. I landed on a pitchfork that was still grasped in the hand of a slowly rotting corpse. The man obviously had been a farmer, and the fact that he had offed himself was fairly obvious. A large container with more than a few drugs in it lay within the man's reach.

What I couldn't understand was two things. One, the room was full to the ceiling with canned goods and two or three hundred bottles of water. Why would this man kill himself when he could have easily survived? And two, I found charred remains of a suicide note at his side, with a book of matched neatly beside. I never did learn why.

Anyway, with the gash in my leg, I was forced to spend a full week in that cellar, unable to drag myself up the very narrow ladder. Fortunately for me, this man had stocked up on medical supplies as well as food. I also found a crate full of dirty magazines. I guess the farmer lived alone.

When I recovered, I made _six_ trips back and forth from his cellar to my cabin. I only met three zombies, all at the same time. This was a full year after The Great Panic, so most of the zombies had been drawn either North after the Canadian migration, Southeast to the civilian zones down that way, or West to the Rockies.

I only saw the zombies because I dropped my bags of goods for a short rest. All three of them had had their throats torn out, perhaps by wild dogs, and as a result they did not moan. I caught sight of them when they were less than ten yards from me. I tried to stay calm. It was the first time in more than four months that I had seen a zombie. I drew my camping machete from my pack and lured them between two trees, making them attack one by one. In three slices, I was done. Looking back now, I wish I had burned the bodies, but I had had enough of the creatures for the day. This was my sixth trip, and I spent the next four months walled up in my cabin. I had salvaged 390 cans of food, and I rationed it pretty well.

It was during my third year that I began to go loopy. I would talk to my deceased Terrier before I went to bed each night. I ate less every day. I was down to half a can of food at one point. It wasn't until my door was kicked in that I woke up.

The man had been bitten. I could tell right away. He must have been from another farmhouse, one I hadn't raided. He didn't say anything, he just jumped me, brandishing a long and gleaming knife.

**Ken motions to the knife, mounted in a frame above his chair where he sits.**

I woke up right then. I stopped feeling sorry for myself and started living again. I fixed my door after I burned the body using wooden boards from my backyard fence. I worked only during the day, and stopped every once and a while to make sure my hammering didn't attract anything unwanted.

Then, I went to the library.

**I give him a questioning look.**

Seriously. I had read every book I had ever found and I was bored out of my mind. I dispatched seventy-nine zombies during my expedition. And I stole over one hundred books.

My fifth year nearly killed me. My will to live was deteriorating. I had fingered a gun more than once. It was then I heard the sheep.

That damn sheep had the nerve to 'Baaa' right outside my door. I was terrified. I nearly peed myself, I was that scared. I had heard nothing for years. Now here was a frickin' sheep! Where the hell had she come from?

I opened the door cautiously, and the thing strolled in like it owned the place.

I had been a religious guy before the war. But on that day, I knew I had been given a sign. It wasn't enough to convince me back to being an honest Christian, but _somebody_ was lookin' out for me.

Now I had a purpose. You may think that I'm a ridiculous man for letting a sheep share my bed, but I still say that if it weren't for Barry, I wouldn't have had the will to make it three more years.

I had a sheep to feed now, and it wouldn't eat beets. I now ventured out of the cabin once a week to find food. I had to go farther than ever each time. Barry came with me only five times, when I was feeling under the weather and I needed a friend along.

That's all I need to say. Thank you for interviewing me.

**Wait! Tell me what happened to Barry, please.**

She left. The day I was rescued. I have no idea why she suddenly wandered off, but I hope she'll be back to visit, maybe after my inevitable death.

**That must have been hard for you.**

… Yeah.

**I leave as I see Ken reach for a box of tissues.**

**--**

**Whoa! That one got away from me. Please review kindly.**

**-SZ**


End file.
